News Item
Minnesota Judicial Branch seeks public input about courts
Posted: Monday, July 31, 2023
Access and Fairness Survey ensures Judicial Branch accountability
The Minnesota Judicial Branch wants to know how court users feel about their experience with the court system.
To gather public input about its services, the Branch will launch an Access and Fairness Survey in August. The survey asks court users to rate the court’s accessibility, fairness, equality, and respectfulness.
“We take the Access and Fairness Survey very seriously,” says Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea. “It’s a window into how court users perceive us—and our report card for what we’re doing well and what we can do better.”
The survey will gather feedback from participants in legal matters, attorneys, service counter users, friends and family of court users, jurors and potential jurors, victims, witnesses, and all other users of the court system. In addition to surveying remote and in-person hearing participants, the 2023 Access and Fairness Survey will seek input from Court Payment Center customers, MJB website visitors, Statewide Self Help Center customers, and External Application Support Team customers.
“It’s a big undertaking, but it’s worth it because the responses help us build a better judiciary that effectively serves the people of Minnesota,” says State Court Administrator Jeff Shorba. “The Access and Fairness Survey ensures accountability of the Judicial Branch and helps us improve overall court operations—and we hope it also builds public trust and confidence in what we do”
This is the fourth Access and Fairness Survey the Minnesota Judicial Branch has conducted. Previous surveys happened in 2008, 2013, and 2019. Results from these surveys can be found in the Judicial Branch’s
annual Performance Measures reports.
“These surveys provide a wealth of information that we use to enhance court services,” says Debra Mueske, District Administrator for the 7
th and 8
th Judicial Districts. “Learning peoples’ honest experiences with the court helps us understand what we need to improve and how we need to improve it.”
The 2023 Access and Fairness Survey will run August through November, though each court location will select a shorter window within this four-month period to conduct local surveys.
The Branch will report the survey’s findings in 2024 as part of its annual Performance Measures reports, which are published each Fall.